Epic Reads

What is an epic read? In my books, it’s a ‘very’ long read – whether a series or a single book.
Doris Lesing’s 5 book saga of life in Rhodesia in the 1930s, collectively called The Children of Violence, has been my most challenging fictional epic read. Somehow non-fiction epics are different. They require a different reading strategy, possibly because I invariably know the outcome, unlike with a novel.
An epic I found less challenging than Doris Lessing but still thought provoking is Leslie Tate’s Love’s Register.
The three books are very different.
Lessing follows the life of Martha Quest, the interwar years, colonial development and the arrival of the Communist Party in Southern Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe. The books include Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965), and The Four-Gated City (1969).
While Tate explores relationships in their diversity and climate issues. Loves Register brings together three separate stories in a single volume.

I’ve also included some other long reads (350+ pages) for you to consider reading… all worthwhile in my opinion.